It’s a new year and with that comes a whole load of good intentions. Well, I’ve decided to champion unloved scifi movies, games and books in a new series of blogs. After all, everyone deserves a second chance at being loved, don’t they?

Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace was, it’s safe to say, one of the most anticipated cinematic events of all time. The fan base for the Star Wars franchise is probably only marginally outshone by Christianity and perhaps Cliff Richard’s fan club (there are a lot of them, it’s frightening, really). So, the promise of a prequel to the enormously successful trilogy had become the stuff of legend and speculation until it all finally happened in ’99.

With that level of anticipation it was, let’s face it, never going to work out.

There was a lot wrong with Episode One, but I think there was a great deal that got overlooked in the feverish furore of fanboyism that all but buried this movie. One thing that the vast armies of now grown-up fans actively overlooked or outright criticized was the fact that Lucas had clearly elected to remain loyal to his fundamental fan base – children.

It was a conscious effort to carve out a new generation of loyal followers without alienating the established fans and as I have already said it was a task that was never going to be easy (or perhaps even possible at the time). This decision doesn’t excuse Jaja, nothing does, but his inclusion in the franchise isn’t, I would argue, enough of a reason to dismiss Episode One out of hand, nor is the notoriously wooden acting delivered by most of the leads (let’s face it, if you’re being outperformed by a CGI Gungan with a really small head and a speech problem then you maybe need to think about going back to RADA).

Lucas’ decision to make Phantom Menace a kids film was no doubt a difficult one, but I admire him for his tenacity on this point and I believe that he made some elegant gestures to include his original fans with some unprecedented concepts that bridged the gap between adult scifi and the childlike fantasy element that remains at the core of the Star Wars franchise.

First up, the droids.

In A New Hope, Obi Wan refers to the Clone Wars, spawning decades of speculation that would be finally answered when the new movies came out, but Lucas would have to deliver a war that was age appropriate. Death and destruction on that scale, even in a scifi universe, just doesn’t work well in a kids movie.

So, the droids. Goofy, clumsy, skinny; more like robotic geeks than a terrifying army, but watching them deploy from the transports in the battle for Naboo, lying dormant until the activation command was sent down from the control ship, had a crushing sense of inevitability that sent a chill down my spine. I didn’t particularly like the Gungans at the time, but the previously harmless collections of droids had suddenly gathered weight in numbers to become an unstoppable force. On first watching the film I could only imagine the natives collapsing under their relentless advance (remember the initial exchange as the droids burst through the shields, nothing that frenetic or massive had really been seen in a scifi movie before).

Just watching them descend on the defiant few leant the Gungans a sudden depth of character that hadn’t really been apparent before. Offset that with the comedy antics of Jaja (Lord forgive me for defending him) and you have a pitch perfect scene that delivers peril and excitement without straying off the kids movie reservation. This is the point I’m stressing here – it was a kids movie – and it doesn’t necessarily excuse Lucas from not entirely succeeding to bridge the gap, but I think he did a better job than most others might have managed at the time.

Meanwhile the jedi are busy fighting the rather magnificent villain that is Darth Maul and delivering one of the best fight sequences in scifi movie history. I don’t know about you, but when Darth Maul activates his twin saber, one blade at a time, and that now all too familiar score breaks out I still get goosebumps. And this is where Lucas makes yet another brilliant concession to the older fans that was possibly all but forgotten by delivering not just war, but tragedy as well.

Qui Gon’s death is an emotional one that impacts all the more successfully in the wake of such restraint on the part of the jedi. Obi Wan’s face contorts with barely contained rage and pain as he watches, helpless, on the other side of an invisible barrier, fighting to retain control. When the barrier lifts and the fight is rejoined his release is sublime as he delivers justice to the enigmatic villain who has offered menace and darkness without ever chewing the scenery (how many scifi movies can boast that much?)

Of course let’s not forget his master, Darth Sideous/Chancellor Palpatine. The duality of this role is delivered with marvelous Machiavellian relish by Ian McDiarmid, who gives us one of the finest examples of character growth in the trilogy. One of his most memorable lines, often quoted in the marketing material, being ‘wipe them out, all of them’ (yet another nod to the underlying adult themes of the movie, delicately touching on the concept of genocide – all the more daring when you consider the primary target audience). Yes, he goes on to chew the scenery in later episodes, but he does it in the best manner possible while still leaving room for some memorable scenes, such as the one where he revels his true nature to Anakin.

I would close with another character observation by nominating one of scifi’s greatest heroes in Qui Gon Jinn. A powerful jedi embodying everything that we grew to expect of the jedi order in the long years between films; part of a larger universe that had grown so wide since The Return of the Jedi first aired. Let’s not forget that one of the greatest jedi performances came from this film that we were so quick to dismiss at the time.

And that, for me at least, is what makes the Phantom Menace worthy of a little more praise than you might think; it’s ability to knowingly grasp the Star Wars universe without losing sight of it’s true core audience, the very first audience that made Lucas the man he is, the audience I was a part of back in 1977, wide eyed and totally enraptured by this incredible new story – the kids.

If you weren’t a kid for the first three episodes’ cinematic release or for the second outing then you have my sympathies, but I ask you not to ask something of Lucas that he never, ever promised to deliver. These are his films and I would encourage you to try and see them with his eyes before you judge too harshly.

Lucas did some bad things in making the Phantom Menace, but he managed to hide a lot of adult themes in an otherwise brightly colored and generally upbeat kids scifi/fantasy movie. To do this and do it reasonably well is a great achievement for any director. To do it with one of the world’s most beloved properties is nothing short of miraculous.

George Lucas, the creator of 2014′s first Unloved, I salute you, y’big hairy wookie.

[UPDATE - Since writing this the server situation has improved considerably and there was a large scale scheduled maintenance last night to apparently address all issues with overcrowded servers]

Yes, it’s finally out and no, the servers can’t cope with the outrageously high volume of traffic, but after a weekend of persistence and patience (for both these words readbloody-mindedness and churlishness) I have managed to get a good long look behind the fluttering banners that hang over the exquisitely beautiful world of Square Enix’s new MMO.

The server issues that have plagued the game since launch have done nothing for Square Enix’s image, given that this game, which spent years in production, was nothing short of an honest and open apology for the game’s previous iteration, which was an unbridled disaster and possibly one of the worst titles in modern video gaming history.

So, we get the server issue out the way first. Square Enix apparently vastly underestimated the number of people who would be logging in on day one and as a result everything went sideways. Hours of being told that your world was full and that you would have to try again later left thousands of Final Fantasy fans furious and SE have been apparently working through the small hours to increase capacity and twiddle all those server controlling knobs and what-nots that make the magic happen. By all accounts they reckon they will have things back to normal by Wednesday and will be extending the free trial period by seven days for everyone who signed up early enough to warrant the extension.

All that having been said, and it being a royal pain in the ass, when you’re in, you arein.

FFXIV ARR (I’m not typing the whole name again, it’s ridiculous) is beautiful. I’m playing it on the PS3 and the rendering goes beyond high-end. I spent most of my first hour wandering around the seaside city of Limsa Lominsa gawping like a rube on a day trip to New York. It is, of course, fairly obvious that they have managed to ramp up the fidelity by reducing the size of each map, but each area is still big enough and bustling enough to get lost in. Add a deliciously lit day and night cycle and various weather effects like rain and fog and you have a gaming environment that is fun just to explore.

It’s not all sightseeing, though. Eorzea, the world that FFXIV ARR inhabits, is packed with MMORPG action that has bridged the console/pc gap with bold and stylish aplomb. Everything you need for a fully fledged MMO is there and SE have arranged the interface so that you are never more than a couple of button or trigger clicks away from just the action you need to smite, forge or chat.

The class system offers much of the usual fare, coloured as they are with familiar Final Fantasy lore and SE have added a delightfully forgiving system that, once you reach the requisite level, allows you to flip between classes just by changing your primary weapon. You start your path by signing up with the requisite class guild and complete quests for that guild up to level 10 (that’s level 10 quests, not your character level), at which point you are able to visit another guild and choose a second class.

Being an MMO means that you aren’t restricted to combat classes and you can quite happily follow the path of a blacksmith, tailor or chef, should you wish to (so, you could very easily be an axe wielding Marauder who makes nice clothes on the side).

Early quests have you nipping back and forth across the city, which I have to say was very easy to get lost in, with upper and lower decks that had multiple points of entry adding to the confusion, but it is a short lived problem as you soon discover the crystal shards (FF loves a good crystal) that allow you to travel rapidly between key locations. There is also one big crystal at the centre of every town/city that acts as your central hub of reincarnation/teleportation.

As you amble through these early quests there will come a time when someone asks you to step outside the city gates and that, my friends, is when the wonder truly begins.

The maps outside the city are bigger. Sprawling wild landscapes open up in front of you, populated to a respectable draw distance with creatures, NPC’s and other players. Once you have taken the view in it is easy to find your current quests and identify new ones that take you off in all sorts of unexpected directions, but rarely into frustrating difficulty, leaving you sufficiently challenged without ever feeling out of your depth.

The map/minimap functions are a joy to use and make getting around very easy and you quickly find yourself navigating the environment with uncommon ease, which is good because it gives you time to take in the eye-candy, of which there is plenty.

Everything from the grass in the fields to the pumpkins in the patch, the NPC’s and the creatures that populate Eorzea are realised with achingly refined detail. Everything is beautiful, everything.

Combat is great fun, although it can become something of a messy experience when larger battles ensue, but only because it becomes difficult to target the nearest enemy before they have been downed by one of your compatriots, otherwise it really is as simple as point and click. I think my only real gripe at this point would be that there is sometimes so much going on that my eyes just can’t take it all in, even though they want to.

Being an RPG at its heart, of course, you get your requisite loot with every kill and every mission completed and much of it can be used for crafting, but I haven’t gotten into that side of things yet so I can’t comment, but the weapons and outfit elements are sufficiently varied to have you scouring the countryside for useful upgrades.

Beyond their functionality, again, everything you pick up and equip is just a delight to look at. If you’re a Final Fantasy fan then you won’t be disappointed as the diversity of outfits and combinations that result have created a world of variety that is so much fun to take in that you might find yourself people watching for a time. Nothing ever seems to clash and SE’s artistic team have managed yet again to make the bell-bottom cool. My guy has a particularly fetching green chainmail top that flares out rather elegantly at the bottom, an eyepatch and big ears and he still looks hard.

I can’t offer much more at this early stage as there is just too much to take in. The dialogue is amusing and compelling (even their stabs at piratical parlance are suitably self-aware with enough humour to pass off even the worst of the dialect with a knowing wink) and the characters and storylines are varied and engaging. I will admit that I am nervous of how people will behave as it can often be the subscribers that bury an MMO long before the game itself has the chance to shine, but so far everyone has been perfectly civilised.

It’s early days and FFXIV ARR still has a massive issue to overcome whereby a large number of paying patrons can’t even play the game due to SE’s inability to anticipate how many people would buy this title, but when you are online there are no latency issues that I could detect (and I was logged into a Japan server from the UK) and everything within the game seemed to work fine. So, I’m hopeful that this title has a future ahead of it that is going to be free of the many problems that have plagued other recent multi-platform efforts.

As a closing point it’s worth noting that SE did mention that they would be making regular and substantial updates to keep the content fresh, going some way to justify the monthly fee. Here’s hoping they make good on their promise.

When I reviewed the Trion/SyFy vehicle Defiance, I was, well, less than generous. I felt I had put in enough game time and watched enough of the show to present an informed opinion on both and their allegedly symbiotic relationship. In my mind both parts came up very, very short.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I was wrong.

Not only has the endeavour proved to be brave in its scope, for me at least it has proved to be successful. A lot of MMO purists still seem to be hell bent on slating the game, labeling it as being shoddy and uninspiring with repetitive, shallow missions and spurious dialogue, but after realising that I had invested far more hours in this game than I intended to I was compelled to try and understand what it was that kept me coming back for more of this apparently dire game.

I'll get back to the show and the overarching experience shortly - the component that interests me most here is most certainly the game itself. Defiance the game is expansive. With the exception of selectable mission maps (coop, pvp etc) it is one persistent map with numerous dynamic events overlapping with hundreds of tasks and missions that anyone can perform or join at any time. If you're whistling along in your tricked out Mad Max style vehicle and you happen to notice gamers or NPC's engaged in combat you can slam on the brakes, do a body roll out the side door and join in. If you get bored you can just leave. There is a good mix of selectable missions that you have to choose to engage or events that just trigger as you pass, leaving you with the option to join in or drive on.

All this conspires to create a lively world that never feels empty. You can play solo or join others, or phase in and out with a bit of both; every aspect of the interface and the game has been optimised to make this easy to do. You can choose coop or pvp missions that exist either on the main map (shadow wars) or on dedicated maps that all feel generous in size with solid storylines that make each undertaking feel like part of the main campaign. The matchmaking speed for these mission types is, in my experience at least, breathtaking, with an average waiting time from selection of about five to ten seconds. If matchmaking ever takes longer then you can just carry on playing through the main map until all the players are ready and then jump straight in.

And this is where I think I understand the appeal. The environment has improved, with numerous patches fixing all the day one glitches and ramping up the fidelity, even on the pedestrian consoles, but it is the social management that really makes this title stand out. It's wonderfully easy to hook up with other players, dropping in and out of missions or just tagging along for a little mayhem. You can create groups in an instant and communicate through the easy to use and unobtrusive text window or through headset comms - my experience with all of this has been flawless. If you're in a group and someone chooses a story mission you can phase in with them and help along or carry on along your own path until they're done, you don't have to disband the group, even if they leave the map.

NPC's and enemies populate the map, filling any gaps between human players so well that you never feel alone. If you're a lone wolf you can enjoy the bustle of the Bay Area without ever having to interact with another player. The missions remain fun whether you're on your own or in a group and it's that pitch perfection that's so easy to miss on a review playthrough.

The missions themselves aren't overly complicated, but then this is a shooter and shooting isn't really that complicated in itself. This is where I think Defiance's strength is - the missions are easy to get into and if you like shooting stuff then this game gives you just what you want in each mission. There's enough dialogue and characterisation to keep things moving along and the NPC's have interesting storylines that take time to unravel.

The weapons themselves are varied and interesting and different enemies present different challenges, forcing you to move from one weapon type or loadout to another in order to remain effective. Add to that the four powerups that can be modified with a selection of perks and then add to that the chance of hooking up with other players who have their own strengths and you suddenly have a game that becomes more than just a simple shooter whilst retaining that simple quality that makes shooters fun.

The combat isn't AAA, but then it was never meant to be. The simplicity belies a strategic decision to take a step back and give this game room to breathe. AAA shooters are intense, that's what they do, but on this kind of scale you need a little room to be more than that. I think Trion have actually done a great job of achieving exactly what they wanted to do.

As time has moved on the links between the show and the game have started to appear, with Story Missions that reflect that week's tv episode. If you don't watch the show it doesn't matter, the missions still make sense, but if you do watch the show the thrill of taking part in something that exists beyond the game increases the value of the experience exponentially. The tie-ins aren't complicated or overly-clever, but they work and they work well.

The most recent had gamers tackling an outbreak of Irathient plague that was turning Bay Area residents into violent monsters. Participants had to help develop the antidote by protecting the incubators from the drooling, howling proto-zombie hordes in timed Siege events. Dozens of gamers in one location on the main map brought their widely varied loadouts, skills and tactics to the event, battling wave after wave of monsters. On top of that there were the story specific missions that lead you to various locations and into one or two missile silos.

This ran parallel to the show and when the story arc was complete, the plague missions stopped, but there is always something else on the horizon, which is what perpetuates the sense of interest for me.

I've already realised here that I could go on for a good while bringing up examples of extraordinary gameplay in a world that really does feel alive, but is never so demanding that you don't feel that you can commit to playing because you don't have time. It is as deep as you want it to be - if you just want to drop in for a quick blast or if you want to lose yourself in it for hours on end, Defiance the game will not disappoint. This has drawn me in, to the point where I have more than enough stories to tell and am forced to cut this blog short before I run the risk of TLDR (already there, I know).

Suffice it to say that this game has a lot to offer and the more you put in, the more you get back and I'm not alone in how I feel. The Defiance game universe has a strong fanbase with a healthy sense of cooperation that makes the game feel like somewhere, in a gaming sense at least, you can belong.

I don't think the tv show is ever going to achieve that sense of fanaticism, but I don't think it's far behind. Episode by episode the story has gathered pace and the players have grown into their parts. It's a slow burner for sure, but I'm so grateful now for my own persistence that I can see the second season becoming one of the highlights of my tv viewing year.

Finally, when you throw in the seasoning that is the episodic round-up of tv and gameplay crossover in the form of Across the Badlands, a twitch tv live feed that airs after each weeks episode and then appears on youtube, you do get a sense of how much momentum this is all gathering. Yes, Defiance is a slow burner in every respect - the game has taken time and a lot of patches to get right and the tv show is only now growing into its own as the first season draws to a close, but it has all been worth it. The support and the love is there and it's high time I shared my slice of that respect with the rest of you.

To all of you who have been there from the beginning, well done - whether you know it or not you are the defiant few. To the rest of you - what are you waiting for? The Bay needs you, arkhunter.

Xbox One's reveal was a bit of a mess. Itchy trigger fingers abounded and the marketing teams at MS and Sony fired off some early rounds. They both seemed scared that the other was going to make a reveal before E3, lending the first one out the gates some kind of imagined 'traction' (the currency of marketeers everywhere, usually traded for snake oil). The rest really is gaming history as shots were fired and messages were mixed and Sony's sense of restraint and a couple of crowd-pleasing statements seemed to win the day.

I'm as cynical as the next guy and I know that this is all about money, that's all it's ever been about (that is, after all, how we've managed as a society to bring all this glorious gaming stuff about – without the bedrock of capitalism there is no development, no technology, no consoles to bicker over). I know that a lot of the Xbox online implementation is about controlling our spending and making more money than is reasonable, however I can also see the sense behind their 'always online' policies.

The one thing that had me more excited than any amount of stunning graphics or AAA titles was the potential of MS's cloud system to create truly organic, persistent worlds and the idea that developers would be able to tap into some serious processing power for their games (again, disregard the marketing - I don't buy the 'infinite cloud' idea any more than the rest of you, but the potential is there for a genuine game-changer in every sense).

So, part and parcel of the whole thing where the system had to check in every day was this super idea that could actually change gaming, but again the marketeers got the wrong end of the stick and undersold this notion in favour of the 'evil empire' approach, whereby it was all about validating titles and restricting sharing and trade-ins. Desperately counter-intuitive and as we all now know, a really, really bad move.

So, the inevitable backlash ensued and MS did a u-turn and everyone is now happy. Now you can trade your old games and even play offline (not that I can remember the last time I had to do that, but I know it has a massive impact on the armed forces, so it makes sense to do this for their sakes), but I'm still left with a bad taste in my mouth. Why, because MS has been forced by a vocal minority to make a rash decision that is going to limit our gaming potential for years to come.

With the abandonment of a persistent connection it appears that we're going to lose the potential that the cloud promised. We had a chance to make big changes to gaming, to take a big step forward, where we could have been playing in real worlds that changed and aged and weathered with time, registering every action as a persistent note in a tangible, almost believable place. I didn't think it was going to happen overnight or maybe even in the next year, not in a way that was going to make our jaws hit the floor, but the potential for change was there and were on the brink of making that happen.

And we may well have thrown it away so we could keep playing second hand games.

I don't want to fall out with anyone here, MS is as much to blame as the vocal minority for being so reactive rather than sticking to their guns or maybe working out a compromise that would preserve their innovations, but I can't help feeling that this reinforces the notion that we, the consumers, don't always know best.

It could have been amazing, it really could. Maybe it will one day, maybe MS will work through this and retain the cloud system, but as things stand at the moment, with MS having been forced into making a bold statement to please the detractors, I'm not holding out much hope.

Still, the games will look better on the new consoles and that's all that matters, right? Who needs any of this fancy, falutin persistent online universe rubbish, with thousands of players on at the same time in massive environments - that would be boring, right? Especially when I could play my second hand games offline, that would make it all better.

(Note: I am fully aware of the need for certain people to play offline and the financial restrictions many people face that require them to rely in second hand games – I count myself among that number – but when faced with the choice between a brave new world or the safer, smaller option I would buy a ticket for Brave New World, any day of the week).